


all i want to do (is nothing with you)

by commonemergency



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009/2018, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 14:11:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16348217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/pseuds/commonemergency
Summary: “I wish we could do nothing together, but like, actually together.” Maybe that was too vulnerable, maybe saying that would scare Phil off.or A confused Dan, a patient Phil, and a carpark.





	all i want to do (is nothing with you)

**Author's Note:**

> Dan once [tweeted](https://twitter.com/danielhowell/status/4416307005) about a woman staring at him when he was singing in his car enthusiastically, it got me thinking of how some of my most vulnerable (and cherished) moments have been in a parking lot. I didn't write this off the tweet, it just inspired it. (:
> 
> I didn't plan for this to be a 2009 fic (I started writing it yesterday) and stopped writing and would come back to it, I watched the new video and felt like finishing it.

_Are you having fun?_

The text reads. He’s standing outside in front of a fire, there’s music playing somewhere, the only light is one of the porch lights, his friends from school are surrounding him in their own conversations and Dan feels completely isolated from all of it, but he smiles, he takes a sip of the beer he was offered and he tries to radiate all the warmth that the fire gives him. He reaches a hand out, not to touch the flame but to feel it on his palm. 

Dan pulls back, looking at the text again. He doesn’t want to lie to Phil, but he also doesn’t want to have a long conversation about it either. He doesn’t even understand why he’s feeling this way other than he is, and he just has to hope that the feeling passes and that it doesn’t linger like it does sometimes. It can stay for days, weeks, months at a time and Dan was just starting to feel like things were getting better. 

But.

He was saying goodbye again. 

“I’m not ready to head back to university tomorrow,” one of his friends groans, he chugs his drink and Dan smiles briefly. 

“I got to study for a test coming up,” another friend chimes in. “I have so many flashcards to make.” 

_“The parties are bloody amazing,”_

Dan bit down on his bottom lip, his teeth tearing at the loose skin, it was a nervous habit, he felt himself try to get smaller, that way his friends wouldn’t have to feel bad for not including him in conversations that he didn’t understand because he hadn’t experienced it yet. He had a hard time deciding if he made the right decisions or not. He gulps, his eyes staring down at the drink before taking another deep breath. 

“Dan?” A voice tears him away from his thoughts, he’s been intensely staring at the fire for too long. 

He smiles briefly at the person, nodding his head for them to talk. 

“We were gonna go to the pub. Do you want to go?” Dan looks down at his phone to check the time and the unanswered text. 

He shakes his head. 

“No, I’m alright. I promised my mum I’d come home early,” It’s a lie, his mum wouldn’t care if he came home early or not, and he probably knew that. Dan wasn’t even trying to act like he didn’t want to be here anymore. 

The truth was, the more the night wore on, the more Dan felt like he didn’t belong. Like he didn’t know where to fit himself when it came to his group of friends that were already moving on to the better things that they were promised only a few months ago. 

“Yeah, alright.” His friend smiles briefly, placing a hand on his shoulder. 

It looked like everyone was getting ready to go. 

Dan sent a quick reply to Phil. 

_I’m leaving now_

Dan didn’t even finish his drink. He threw out the rest in the bushes and placed his cup inside another empty cup and went inside to use the toilet. 

He gets another text. 

_So soon? :o_  
_Skype??_

Dan fixes his hair and gives himself a minute before he walks back out. They’re sitting on the sofa now and Dan wants to say that he’s getting ready to leave but he doesn’t know how to say goodbye. He won’t be seeing a lot of these people until their Christmas break, some even later than that. He feels like something stuck in his throat as he sits down on the armchair while the rest of them talk about other university activities they got going on, or horror stories from roommates. 

Dan is genuinely interested in everyone’s life, he’s grown up with a lot of these people, it’s just he was starting to realise that they won’t always be there when he needed them to be—not that he was super, super close with anyone here. They didn’t know his darkest secrets, or that there were days when Dan just couldn’t. This was one of those nights. 

“I’m going to head out, I think.” Dan says, his voice cracks a little. He clears his throat and smiles awkwardly to everyone. 

“Oh, you’re not coming with us to the pub?” One of the girls pouts, getting up from her boyfriends lap and he shakes his head. 

“No, unfortunately not.” He’s got his arms ready to hug her. 

He makes it through a line of people, telling each one of them that he’ll miss them, and that they need to come down more, or maybe if he’s got the time he’ll visit them soon. It’s a lot of empty promises but it gives them the reassurance that everything is fine in Dan’s head. _It’s just that he’s tired._

He grabs his keys from his back pocket, looks back at everyone with one single wave and closes the door behind him. He walks down the street a little to his car and when he gets in he just sits there in the silence. 

Dan looks down at his phone again. 

Phil always felt like someone that he could run to when things were messy in his head because Phil listened, and he didn’t understand a lot of Dan’s thoughts all the time he tried to. It’s not that his other friends didn’t it’s just that Dan had a hard time being vulnerable with them. Maybe it did have to do with the fact that they’ve all grown up together in some ways, maybe because he watched the way they interacted with other people, they all knew each other better than the people they’re with Uni now but they were all on different paths and could still connect in some way that Dan _couldn’t._

This had seemed to be the constant struggle throughout the summer to now, Dan didn’t know where he belonged and he didn’t know if he was doing the right thing a lot of the time. He felt like he kept fucking up by getting into fights with his parents and just being unintentionally angry at his brother. 

Dan turned the car on and peeled out of his spot. It was a moderately cold night, just a slight breeze, no sign of rain but it was cloudy from what he could see. He had the volume on low so he turned it up to help drown out his thoughts. He was deciding where to go because he didn’t want to be home but he didn’t want to keep driving either. He chewed on the inside of his cheek before deciding and making a turn. There was a strip of businesses and a fairly large carpark that he could sit at for a while. 

He parked a little ways away from streetlamp and unbuckled his seatbelt moving his chair back a little. He turned the radio down to where he could still hear it but low enough so he could hear himself think. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and took another deep breath. 

_Dan? Are you ok?_

Dan was okay, but at the same time he felt an overwhelming sadness. He wished that he could explain everything he felt in person to Phil, because the distance sucked but also it didn’t feel the same over text. He knew that there was Skype but it almost felt too impersonal. He didn’t know how to explain it. 

There was another thought, another reason why he didn’t want to tell Phil how he was feeling because in a way he was intimidated. Phil had already finished with school. Maybe it was trivial in Phil’s eyes of how he was feeling. Dan didn’t want to come off childish especially because he liked him. He knew that Phil would never judge him but that fear was still there. 

_I’m having a weird night sorry. I think seeing everyone put me in the weird mood_

Phil doesn’t take a long time to reply back. 

_Im sorry :’ < is there anything i can do?_

Dan wants to tell him that he’s already done enough.  
Dan wants to tell him the fact that he’s stayed this long is more than enough. 

Dan felt like that he wasn’t that easy to like because he was loud and opinionated and wanted to be heard and often went to great lengths to be heard only to be looked over in the crowd. 

_No i just wish we lived closer :(_

Dan leans his against the window of his car and then his phone buzzes. It’s not a text message, it’s a phone call. 

Dan is confused but he answers the call anyway. 

“Hello?” He says, his voice cracks and he feels his cheeks heat up slightly. 

“Hi.” Phil says, there’s a gentleness to his voice that Dan is so used to hearing over their many Skype conversations. 

“Hi.” Dan says, he pauses for a moment before asking, “What are you doing?” 

He can hear shuffling in the background. 

“I’m getting into a comfortable position on my bed.” 

Dan lets out a laugh and rolls his eyes. “I get that. I mean why are you calling me?” 

“Because I want to?” He can hear Phil laugh over the phone. 

“Oh.” Dan says, feeling the warmth in his chest. This wasn’t any different from really any other conversation they’ve had but yet it felt important. Maybe because of how the night had been going he felt cared and thought about, but more importantly: _seen._

“So what happened?” 

Dan gets a lump in his throat again and he’s looking out the window now. 

“Nothing really. It was just a lot of talk about university and I can’t really relate to that or…. Like anything they were saying. Because I’m just here in Wokingham not sure what I’m doing with my life. Like I know I have a plan but it’s like I’m not doing much now. I don’t know if that makes sense—I’m useless, sorry.”

He didn’t know why he kept on talking—soon Phil would be bored with all of his talking and prefer someone who was more quiet. Dan took another deep breath getting ready to backtrack everything he said. 

“I don’t think you’re useless, Dan. I mean if it helps I don’t know what I’m doing either? So we can both not know what we’re doing together.” 

Dan opens his mouth to say something but then he closes it again. “I wish we could do nothing together, but like, actually together.” Maybe that was too vulnerable, maybe saying that would scare Phil off. 

“Me too. Which is why you should come visit me soon.” 

Dan smiles at the possibility. “Yeah? Are you sure?” 

Phil laughs again. “Obviously, Dan. I just want to do a whole lot of nothing with you, but maybe also, something.” Phil’s voice goes kind of quiet near the end. 

“Something, yeah?” Dan says thoughtfully, like he’s been pondering what that ‘something’ was between them for a while now. 

“Yeah. Nothing and something.” 

“Okay. I want that too.” Dan says with a small smile. There’s silence for a moment, listening to the other breathe on the phone, taking in where the conversation had led to, but the song breaks his thoughts and he has to laugh. 

“Phil. Not to ruin the moment or anything, but the radio is playing I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas.” 

They both laugh, Dan turning the music up so they could both listen to it together.

**OCTOBER 19TH, 2018.**

**Phil:**  
Are you uploading the gaming video or am i?

 **Dan:**  
i can. did u title it yet??

 **Phil:**  
Yes its pretty clever if you ask me (:

 **Dan:**  
oh god  
wow ok i thought it was going to be much worse  
im a little disappointed actually 

**Phil:**  
Hey it’s straight and to the point! 

**Dan:**  
its fine i actually like it  
works really well with the thumbnail lmao

 **Phil:**  
Some of my best work tbh 

**Dan:**  
shut up 

**Phil:**  
WUU2?

 **Dan:**  
a whole lot of nothing. you?

 **Phil:**  
Me too.  <3

 **Dan:**  
<3  
gross.

 **Phil:**  
Ur mums gross

**Author's Note:**

> apparently, I Gotta Feeling was in uk's top 100 in 2009 (the second most played song next to Poker Face) just a fun fact for ya.
> 
> comments/kudos appreciated! 
> 
> talk to me on tumblr/twitter: **@nihilismdan.**
> 
> [reblog](http://nihilismdan.tumblr.com/post/179223295848/all-i-want-to-do-is-nothing-with-you-pairing) on tumblr.


End file.
